


Mages in the Chantry

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, a very small side because it's mostly just Hawke verbally dicking around, with a side of pissing Fenris off, with and about her possessed friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 04:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“As the traditions of rural upbringing dictate, Hawke spends the first day of the new year checking on everybody to make sure they’re not dead.” </p><p>Friendship vignette. A few Act II conversations between Anders and Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mages in the Chantry

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by dialogue between f!Hawke and Anders during an unromantic playthrough. I haven't written fanfiction for about three years, so I apologise in advance for my tenuous grasp on – well, everything. Also, the opening line was inspired by this: http://blog.bioware.com/2012/12/25/thedosian-holidays/
> 
> Hopefully someone out there likes it...?

As the traditions of rural upbringing dictate, Hawke spends the first day of the new year checking on everybody to make sure they’re not dead.

She marches over to Fenris’ place first, by virtue of it being just around the corner. There is no response when she yells for him at the door. He’s probably boozed up somewhere in the upper reaches of the mansion, Hawke decides. Probably lost at cards. Again.

He still hasn’t gotten rid of the corpses in the foyer. Hawke burns them for him as a courtesy, along with the assorted fungi. She leaves him a bottle of Antivan vintage and one of Varric’s favourite anthologies of dirty limericks.

She drops by the Keep next. Aveline is up bright and early as always, doling out duty rosters to worshipful subordinates. Isabela is nowhere to be found when she goes to the Hanged Man, but Varric has the grace to struggle awake for lunch. Mostly for Merrill’s sake, it seems. The young elf is fast asleep on a moth-eaten daybed. Getting some rest, says Varric, on account of an infestation of giant rats that’s taking a while to exterminate. Or rescue. Who knew with Daisy?

Gamlen, unfortunately, is alive and well. 

Anders is the last on her list. The Darktown clinic never seems to close, and it’s hours before the last patient melts away into the dark. 

“You never told me why you chose to be a healer,” she says, legs swinging off a rusted gurney as she sips the last of the ale. None for Anders: Justice would disapprove of celebratory drinking even if they’d averted a sixth Blight.

“You never asked,” returns Anders, over the pile of health potions he’s stacking. “It’s my calling. I’m just too damned noble, couldn’t pass up the chance to rub salves on all the prostitutes and greasy aristocrats who saunter in _just_ before closing time. ‘ _Oh, Healer, I’ve got sores there. Healer, I don’t think it’s supposed to be that colour. Healer, my naughty bits won’t stop itching, I think I’m allergic to feathers_.’”

“Here I thought you wanted to cure the ills of Thedas,” she says dryly.

Anders shrugs. “Just had a knack for it, really, and thought I’d put it to use. I wasn’t exactly a paragon of charity when I was younger.”

“You’re a perfectly fearsome warrior,” Hawke offers diplomatically. “The healer who’s putting my torn-up insides together after a battle could easily take me back apart.”

“True. We Circle-trained spirit healers have excellent knowledge of biology, so we can fumble under the robes of Fereldan heroes when their pet templars aren't looking.”

“Stop name-dropping. You’re not Varric.” Anders is definitely smiling a little, though. That’s something. Or possibly her imagination. “Besides, you’re _our_ healer. We couldn’t get rid of you if we wanted to.”

“The templars have been trying for years,” he remarks. "I'm still here."

 _He’s in a good mood_. _Justice must’ve taken the day off._

“To the stupidity of templars, then,” Hawke finishes, thrusting the ale skyward in an exuberant toast, and is secretly pleased when Anders raises a potion in response.

 

* * *

 

"What was it like with the Wardens?” she asks one day. They’re holed up in the clinic again, watching for a sign of Gascard Du Puis, and there’s little else to do. Fenris is lurking in a corner, sullenly polishing his sword; Isabela leans against him, providing a loud and lurid narration that's turning the heads of several interested patients. Fenris just keeps scowling; Hawke almost swears his ears are twitching.

(The one time Hawke tries, well, polishing Fenris’ sword, it ends badly – what doesn’t, these days? But her second-best scarf still gleams scarlet around Fenris’ wrist; inexplicably, scrupulously clean even after countless battles in the Kirkwall dirt.)

It’s not the time to talk about living on the run, but right now, Anders’ tragedy is a lot more compelling than dwelling on the sorry state of House Hawke – full of blame, resentment, and the consequences of shotgun marriages to charming apostates.

She doesn’t want to think about her family. Almost unconsciously, her fist curls around the letter in her pocket, crumpling Carver's accusations into oblivion. 

Anders glances at her, any irritation at dredging this up overcome by concern. "What’s left to tell? I was conscripted, picked up a stray spirit in a swamp, now I can’t get rid of him.”

“Maybe I should’ve been a Grey Warden,” Hawke says gloomily. “Less poking around sewage, more…hunting the Deep Roads with Carver and Stroud and all the other ticking time bombs.”

Penance for Bethany, perhaps.  

Anders scowls. “It’s not as glorious and history-making as it’s cracked up to be, you know. Blighted Wardens hate hope, fun, and everything else that's good in the world.”

“The Taint will do that,” agrees Hawke. “Not much of a life expectancy.” _Carver has thirty years to live, at most. He’ll never grow old and crotchety and shout at his grandkids about how grateful they should be that they’re not speaking Qunari._  "What about you? What are you doing once you finish the unholy crusade for mage rights?"

She regrets the words even as they leave her lips. Anders’ expression hardens.  _Way to go, Hawke. Now you're stuck with Justice._

“It won’t end. Not until every mage in Thedas lives free of the Circle’s shackles.”

“Sure it will. For you, anyway,” she says, almost rhetorical. “Everyone dies. Wardens, sooner than later.”

Anders says nothing, and a horrible thought occurs to Hawke – Vengeance never sleeps, he’s said before. Nor will it fizzle out with a whimper. For all she knows, Anders will find himself in the Deep Roads one day, a burnt-out husk wasting away into a ghoul, with the spirit of Vengeance still at the helm. 

Hawke thinks she’d rather be alive and running, but there's never any middle ground with Anders.

“I’ll be there when your time comes,” she declares, and he stares at her. “And my brother’s. Twenty, thirty years from now – just find me. I’ll meet you in Orzammar.”

She doesn’t know how to kick Justice out of Anders’ corpse, but she'll find a way. She's survived the Fifth Blight, slain ancient demons and arcane horrors, struggled free of the Deep Roads' darkest thaigs. Surely she can exorcise (evict?) the _one_ recalcitrant spirit who wants to use her friend as a sock puppet.

“This I swear to you,” she finishes dramatically, “Anders of the…Anderfels and the Grey Wardens, bane of darkspawn, scourge of spiders, saviour of kittens.”

Not the most rousing of proclamations, but Hawke reckons Varric would give it a pass. Besides, the pained look on Anders’ face makes her grin.

Anders attempts to muster a smile, but his brow furrows, creating an overall effect of puzzled regret and something else Hawke can’t quite identify. “That's the problem with heroes,” he says eventually. “You lot keep giving and giving until there isn’t anything left of _you_.”

Hawke has no idea how to respond to that – but then, she remembers with a rueful pang, she _was_ the one who told Anders he had a _sexy tortured look_ about five minutes after his former lover bit the dust.

“Sandwich?” she offers instead. “Bodahn’s a wizard with nug meat.”

 

* * *

 

Apostates in the Chantry – something about the idea seems sacrilegious, but when Hawke is a child, her mother believes in Andraste and insists they attend every week to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Bethany recites the canticles with all the dutiful reverence of an angel; Carver wriggles through the sermons and pinches his older sister in the pews.

It never escalates into an all-out brawl, though, with Father there to stop it.

Hawke wonders who will stop the fighting now that Mother’s gone as well. All the peacemakers in the family are dead and buried: it’s just her and Carver now, brittle and wary, circling each other like wounded birds.

“Varric said you’d be here.”

Hawke glances up in alarm. “You shouldn't have.” She’s seen how skittish he is in the Gallows, always scanning every angle of the area for templars and quick escapes. The Chantry can’t be much better.

Anders doesn’t seem to mind, though he does shift in obvious discomfort. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he says eventually. “I can’t believe any mage would do such a thing––”  
  
“Don’t,” she warns. _Not now._  

Thankfully, he falls silent and takes a seat beside her in the pew. Fenris’ attempts at comfort have been spectacularly unhelpful, and Hawke doesn’t imagine Anders’ will be much better – they both mean well, and she appreciates it, but neither Fenris nor Anders really have a family they remember.

She gazes up at the statue of Blessed Andraste, just so she has somewhere to look. “Do you think Andraste listens to the prayers of mages?”

The lightness of her tone sounds forced to her ears, but Anders seems to buy it. He looks thoughtful. “It’s good to think that someone out there is willing to show mages the kind of mercy that they don’t find here in Kirkwall. Some scholars believe Andraste was a mage, you know – but you never hear much from them. Bad for Chantry propaganda.” 

Hawke makes a non-committal noise. “At least Father will have more company,” she murmurs, more to herself than anything else.

Anders smells different, more _human_ , outside the stink of Darktown, away from the battles where Justice burns – there’s the clean herbal bitterness of elfroot and distillation agents, and something sweeter that might have been vanilla.

Hawke wonders what Anders would have been like as a fully human mage, free of angry spirits with no proper stakes in the realm of mortals. Someone with a small army of kittens, hopelessly in love with someone else without a Tranquil sun scorched into their forehead. Someone who wears Tevinter mage robes out and proud, just because he can but _especially_ to piss Fenris off, and never once sets foot in a Chantry, much less to talk about feelings.  

Anything other than a righteous, manifesto-writing revolutionary who cares too damned much about everything, really. 

Isabela’s gone, and so is Mother, and their Qunari overlords are going to finish conquering Kirkwall any day now. She's never been good at saving people, not the way Anders has, but she'll hex all the templars in Thedas before she loses him too.

She leans over and buries her face in the bedraggled feathers of Anders' coat, lets him wrap an arm around her shoulders, and wishes to the Maker that things could have been different.  


End file.
